Class Dojo

ClassDojo

I have used and observed ClassDojo in the classroom on numerous occasions. ClassDojo is a classroom management tool used to quickly give positive and negative feedback to students based on their actions. Each student creates and personalizes an avatar to be a part of the class. Throughout the day, teachers can give and take away points simply by opening the app on their smart phone, computer, or tablet. ClassDojo also allows for whole schools to use the program and any teacher or administrator can give student feedback and notes, allowing behaviors to be monitored throughout the day instead of in just one classroom. When a point is given or taken away, a noise is made. If the points are displayed on a TV or other screen, students can monitor their own behavior and see how well they are staying on task. Through the app, students can also be divided into groups to monitor collaboration during projects and assignments. Students and parent can both create accounts and have access to ClassDojo to monitor behavior. One of my favorite parts of ClassDojo is the ability to create reports on each student. These reports allow the teacher to add notes to why a point was given or taken away, as well as record when the feedback was given. If a student causes problems consistently, or begins to act differently, it is easy for teachers, parents, or administration to keep track of behavior trends for that student and see if there are any triggers that may be causing the behavior.

The school that I am currently in uses a school wide behavior plan. Students are awarded and deducted scholar dollars for social, academics, and leadership. At the end of the quarter, students can spend their money at the scholar store. This is very enticing for some students, however it does not work well for many others. I have found that the biggest downfall to the scholar dollar system is that points are recorded on paper in the student agendas. Because of this, teachers often do not bother taking/giving scholar dollars and pages are often ripped out or lost by students.

Though the school I am currently working at is a middle school, I believe that switching to an online system like ClassDojo could improve the scholar dollar system. Recording scholar dollars online could create a more reliable system that allows teachers to give student feedback more easily. An online system would also take away the ability for students to purposefully lose scholar dollar sheets due to misbehaving in class.

ClassDojo is available online and for download on any smart device.

Pieces Basic and Number Pieces

Another app that was essential during my student teaching was the Pieces Basic and Number Pieces app. Both are free and created by the same company, and the number pieces app is a more complex version of the pieces basic app. The Number Pieces program is also available online. 

The app is very simple to use, just drag and drop the pieces you want on to the screen. You can add numbers at the top to keep track of the problem. For addition problems, you are able to draw a big circle around pieces you are using and press the blocks together button (third from the right) which will condense the blocks into the proper number of ones, tens, and hundreds. This tool was used after students had written down their answer to the problem.I found this very useful for my students as they were having a lot of problems 'trading' when using the physical manipulatives in their classrooms.

*The trading problem is due to difficulty with keeping track of physical manipulatives not an issue with the math concept which is why I allowed them to use the tool on the app*

The app also allows for the tens blocks to be lid in either direction (horizontal or vertical). This feature allows for better organization of the blocks on the screen. Another way students can organize their blocks is by changing the color. The default setting is that ones are yellow, tens are green, and hundreds are red. However, students can use these three colors on any of the blocks so they could make an entire number red and the other number green.

Though I mainly did addition with my students, the app also allows for easy subtraction. To break apart the blocks for subtraction, simply select the pieces to be split and hit the button second from the right. This will break hundred flats into ten rods, and ten rods into ones cubes. This again limits the error that may be caused by trading out the physical manipulatives. 

When working with younger students, the pieces basic app is best as it only offers ones, tens, and hundreds blocks. The Number pieces app also contains thousands and number lines. Number Pieces works the same way as the Pieces Basic app but with added blocks.

SAMR
In most classrooms, using this app may seem like a simple substitution for real base ten blocks. In my classroom for student teaching however, this app allowed for modification. Students were now able to complete the tasks without getting confused and creating errors in their problems. It also allowed us to work more on the skill of breaking and building numbers with the students as we were not able to get sets of base ten blocks for them to use.

Bitsboard and Sight Words

Trace It Game

During my student teaching last year, Sight Words was one of my favorite apps to use with my students! Sight Words is the most basic Bitsboard app and is designed for students from preschool to third grade. Bitsboard also makes similar apps for different grades and subjects. The main focus of the app is to help students learn sight words or vocabulary words in a fun and engaging way. 

The app is very simple to use and navigate through. When the app is opened, the user chooses an account to use. Accounts are free and can be set up for each student or the user can proceed as a guest. The advantage to creating accounts for each student is that the teacher can go into the app and check student progress. 

Once in the app, select which grade or group of words to use in the games. Each list  has about 20 sight words on it. This list can be narrowed down by going into the account settings and selecting which words from the list you want the student to work on. Students then choose what game they want to play to practice their sight words (these games can also be limited by the teacher). Possible games include photo touch, match up, trace it, unscramble, missing item, word search, crosswords, and more! Each game works on the spelling and recognition of the words as well as the pronunciation and picture association. In the games, words are in a random order to increase learning and decrease memorization of the order so students have to actually learn the words to do well. At the end of each game, students will be given a score which can be recorded by teachers to determine the success and learning of the given words. 

Teachers can also use the Review Game to quiz students. Words will pop up on the screen one at a time. The student reads/says the word out loud. After reading the word, the teacher/student can hit "Tap to see answer" and the app will read the word. A bar at the bottom will then pop up and ask "How well did you know this" with color coded answers: red- not well, yellow- somewhat, green- very well. Once all of the words have been assessed, The app will tell you the percent correct (yellow and green), the percent known (green), as well as a list of all of the words given and the score given. Teachers can also compare these scores to all of the past scores to see the progress being made. 

Use in classroom

My student teaching was in a special education resource classroom for Kindergarten through third grade. I mainly used the app with my K-1 students and one second grade student. My students loved using the app! It was a great tool to have them practice as I worked one- on -one with other students. It was also a great way to keep them engaged and actually interested in studying sight words. My cooperating teacher and I were able to see huge results from before using the app to the end of my student teaching with all of our students. The three students I had using it most all loved the Trace It Game. I eventually had to tell them that they could only play it once every 5 games!

SAMR

This app can be used in many different ways in the classroom. In my classroom last year, I was mainly using this technology as an augmentation. All of the uses for the app, I could have done paper pencil or with physical flash cards. The app however allows for all of the games and tools I may have been using with my students into one place as well as keep data for me in the same place.